History Colorado: "A" should be for "Advertising"

History Colorado bills Denver A to Z as a "lighthearted and interactive exhibit" from Adrenaline to Zombies. Zzzzz. "Near and Dear" mountains for "N"? It's hard to come up with a smart alphabet-shtick variation; I try and fail in this week's column. And I already have a correction: "A" should be for "Advertising," because History Colorado has a smart gimmick going.

I was at Bubba Gump's on Saturday -- hey, the volleyball tournament was just across the street at the Colorado Convention Center -- when a round of coasters landed on our table. They were for History Colorado, and promised "Stories Told Daily."

Mike the Headless Chicken Fruita farmer Lloyd Olson only wanted a delicious chicken dinner. Instead, his hunger hatched the career of Mike the "Headless Wonder Chicken." Olson's ax sliced poor Mike's head clean off, but missed his brain stem--enough to keep the chicken alive. "Miracle Mike" shook off the blow as if nothing happened. Mike's tenacity -- he lived an additional 18 months -- made him a chicken celebrity. He toured the United States in 1945, with eager audiences paying 25 cents to see the acephalous wonder. Today, Fruita remembers Mike with a statue and a festival, held each May.

Patricia Calhoun co-founded Westword, Denver’s News and Arts weekly, in 1977; she’s been the editor there ever since. She’s a regular on the weekly Colorado Public Television roundtable Colorado Inside Out, the former president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies -- a post that got her an unexpected interview with former President Bill Clinton in front of a thousand people (while she was in flip-flops) -- and played a real journalist in John Sayles’s Silver City.